Charlottesville, VA hired former US Attorney Tim Heaphy to conduct an independent review of the events of August 12, when violence broke out during a white supremacist rally.
“We remain hopeful that the rally will not be besieged by hate groups or violence, but we feel that a relevant church must always be prepared to go wherever God’s people are hurting,” said the Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston, Bishop of Virginia. “Events like these make our Intercultural Summit all the more timely, relevant and needed.”
“The president’s words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia,” write rabbis of three traditions in a statement canceling what became an annual conference call with President Barack Obama.
The song leader told us to sing loud enough for the neo-Nazis outside to hear. This church—my Episcopal church—normally a place of stiffness and Southern gentility, transformed into a loud celebration. We were stomping and pounding on the backs of pews, clapping our hands together like cymbals … with unencumbered joy, all ages and races and faiths together, trapped in a building with no particular urgency to leave each other. In that moment, we were unified, choosing joy in the face of an unknowable terror.
… intentionally, purposely, and liturgically rededicate ourselves to the way of Jesus, the work of racial reconciliation, the work of healing and dismantling everything that wounds and divides us, the work of becoming God’s Beloved Community
“I think it is the responsible thing for us to do,” Bishop Lawrence Provenzano said.
The Religious Imagineer, Jim Friedrich reflects on the events in Charlottesville and the disturbing questions re-emerging from them
White people, speak out against white supremacy. It is we white people who must speak to white supremacists to make clear that we do not agree with them, that they do not speak for the “white race.” Our silence will be heard as complicity. – Bishops Johnston, Goff and Gulick
Episcopal bishops and faith leaders across the country have spoken out and named the dangerous racist ideology behind Saturday’s violence.